Preventing caries and cavities and improving the delivery of minerals necessary to healthy teeth and bone, while preserving and/or enhancing cosmetic features, are important goals in oral health care. In this regard the application of calcium and other mineral-containing agents continues to be an effective and widely used treatment for the prevention of cavities and remineralization of teeth and bone. Although effective in most cases, it is not without its drawbacks. Conventional mineral treatments are only marginally effective in providing useful minerals to teeth and enamel, and a large proportion of the so-applied minerals are unabsorbed and passed on into, and ultimately through, the body.
Clearly then, there is a need for mineral delivery compounds that can help prevent cavities and that can also aid in the reconstruction of damaged teeth and bone. There is also a continuing need for materials that exhibit high absorption characteristics. Various embodiments discussed herein address these needs.
With respect to the production of functionalized materials, there are few practical chemical processes that allow for industry-sized scaling. These techniques, as well as other well-known chemistries, include hydrothermal/solvothermal synthesis, micellar templates, and controlled growth in hot volatile solvents. Although these and other chemistries exist for creating functionalized materials, they are generally characterized by one or more of the following drawbacks: 1) wide temperature variations, 2) need for volatile solvents to effectuate dissolution of one or more phases, 3) reduced pressure systems to alleviate oxygen or water contact with reagents, 4) expensive templating molecules or multi-step syntheses, and 5) excessive overhead, including scientific expertise, laboratory space, and equipment.
Thus, there remains a need for a process for more efficiently producing functionalized materials, such as micro-, meso, and nanoscale organic/inorganic hybrid composites, without the use of solvents and on a large, industrial scale. These functionalized materials may compliment new and/or existing dental product formulations (with or without fluoride), such as gels, varnishes, pastes, rinses, adhesives, filling materials and the like, for the repair of weakened dentition. The present novel technology addresses these needs.